Man Accused Of Killing Minot Mother Of His Child
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Police said Friday that they arrested a man who they believe fatally shot the mother of his child in a Minot apartment earlier this year, but that they're still investigating the killing of her brother, mother and mother's boyfriend.
Omar Kalmio was arrested on a murder charge in the January slaying of 19-year-old Sabrina Zephier, Police Capt. Dan Strandberg said. Their infant daughter was found alive in the apartment where Zephier's body was found.
Zephier's mother, Jolene, 38; brother, Dillon, 13; and Jeremy Longie, 22, the mother's boyfriend, were found slain in a nearby mobile home the same day. Kalmio is not an official suspect in those killings, but police are still investigating them, Strandberg said.
The Zephiers were members of South Dakota's Yankton Sioux Tribe.
Kalmio, who is Somali, was arrested at the Grand Forks County jail, where he has been held since early February on an unrelated immigration charge. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney. He previously spoke with The Associated Press by telephone from the jail, but he did not immediately respond to a request left Friday seeking comment about the murder charge.
Witnesses say they heard Kalmio describe details of injuries to Zephier that had not been publicly released, according to police.
Kalmio, who was 26 years old in February, was convicted in 2006 of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and sentenced to about a year in prison. Kalmio and a group of other Somali men attacked a man in Minneapolis in January 2006, and Kalmio stabbed him three times in the back with a knife, according to a criminal complaint in the case. He was jailed in February for allegedly violating the terms of his release in that case. Kalmio also was convicted of theft that year.
Strandberg said this summer's flooding in Minot may have delayed Kalmio's arrest in the slaying because police had to divert their efforts elsewhere.
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